page_title: Ithaca
section_title: First settlers
hierarchical_section_title: Ithaca / History / First settlers
caption_attribution_description: English: Olive tree on Ithaca, Greece, that is claimed to be at least 1500 years old. Photo by Rien Post, june 2006.
context_page_description: Ithaca, Ithaki or Ithaka is a Greek island located in the Ionian Sea, off the northeast coast of Kefalonia and to the west of continental Greece.
  Ithaca's main island has an area of 96 square kilometres and had a population in 2011 of 3,231. It is the second-smallest of seven main Ionian Islands, after Paxi. Ithaca is a separate regional unit of the Ionian Islands region, and the only municipality of the regional unit. The capital is Vathy.
  Modern Ithaca is generally identified with Homer's Ithaca, the home of Odysseus, whose delayed return to the island is the plot of the classical Greek tale the Odyssey.
context_section_description: The origins of the first people to inhabit the island, which occurred during the last years of the Neolithic period (4000–3000 BC), are not clear. The traces of buildings, walls and a road from this time period prove that life existed and continued to do so during the Early Hellenic era (3000–2000 BC). In the years (2000–1500 BC) some of the population migrated to part of the island. The buildings and walls that were excavated showed the lifestyle of this period had remained primitive.
caption: Olive tree of Ithaca that is claimed to be at least 1500 years old.
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